There are a variety of known shunted electrical connectors, including connectors of the modular jack type, wherein selected different terminals of the connector are shunted or shorted for various proposals. Examples of such connectors are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,691 to Abernethy, dated Jun. 21, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,423 to Sweugel, dated Nov. 12, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,393 to Ward et al., dated Sept. 5, 1989; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,874,333 to Reed, dated Oct. 17, 1989. All of these patents show one form or another of a modular jack type connector which includes such components as shorting elements, bridging cards, shunting strips and the like to shunt or short selective different terminals of the connectors, particularly when the connectors are not receiving a mating connector plug. For instance, the shunting elements may be used to maintain line continuity when no plug is inserted into the jack.
Generally, electrical connectors of the character described include "spring beam contacts" which protrude from a portion of the jack housing into the plug receiving cavity of the jack, the contacts or terminals being separated from each other by molded walls of the jack. The terminals include terminal portions, usually in the form of terminal pins for mating with the terminals of a complementary electrical component. For instance, the terminal pins may form solder tails for insertion into holes in a printed circuit board. In some instances, the terminal pins or solder tails are arranged in a single row, and in many other instances the terminal pins or solder tails are arranged in two rows.
The Sweugel '423 patent discloses a shunting strip which is programmable to shunt selective different terminals in a given row. The strip is fabricated from sheet metal and includes a web portion from which a series of individual contact fingers have been stamped to lie adjacent the plane of the web portion. The shunt is secured in the jack housing, with preselected individual contact fingers having been bent to project out of the plane of the web into the jack cavity and into engagement with free end portions of the spring beam contacts, thereby to common the terminals when a plug is not received in the jack cavity. The unselected contact fingers remain adjacent the plane of the web portion of the stamped and formed shunt.
One of the problems with programmable shunted electrical connectors as shown in the Sweugel '423 patent is that the programmable shunt is very specifically formed and is designed to shunt selective terminals in a single row. If the terminals of a modular jack are to be arranged in two rows, as is quite common, a different sized and shaped shunting strip must be fabricated, adding significantly to the overall assembly costs of the jack connector. More importantly, the shunting strip can shunt only one combination of terminals. For instance, the shunting strip could shunt terminals 1, 2, 4 and 6 in a given row. However, the strip could not shunt terminals 1 and 2 independent of shunting terminals 4 and 6.
The present invention is directed to solving the above problems by providing a modular jack type connector with programmable shunting means in the form of a shunting strip stamped of a given size and shape and which can be formed in different configurations to shunt independent configurations of terminals.